Posts tagged Drunkenatheist

Since the collapse of the Iron Curtain, it’s fallen to the Western
nations to take up the banner of the War on Photography, formerly a
stereotypically East German sort of preoccupation for the Securitate…

A few days ago, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the United States government’s Marshals attacked, arrested, and imprisoned my friend George Donnelly, an Anarchist based out of Philadelphia. They attacked him because he was filming the Marshals attacking somebody else, Julian Heicklen, who was peacefully distributing pamphlets about jury nullification in front of a federal courthouse. When Marshals got up in Heicklen’s face, he started arguing with them; like most government cops, the Marshals are happy to gang up on old men, and like most government cops, they believe they have the right and duty to use physical violence in order to put an end to purely verbal arguments. When the Marshals started attacking Heicklen, some of them went after George for filming what they were doing. Since he wouldn’t stop filming or hand over his camera on command, the Marshals tackled him, planted a knee on his face and pried the camera out of his hands. Then they arrested him for resisting arrest, and forced into a Federal jail for about 2 days before he was finally released, after a concerted effort by George’s friends at Fr33 Agents to make calls demanding his release.

He is safe at home for now with his wife and child. But the bullshit charges are still pending. Here’s George:

Thank you so much to everyone who noted my disappearing by federal agents
and took steps to aid me. I am blessed and grateful to have such dear friends
and comrades. Thank you. I will post more when I can. I’m currently
recuperating from the relatively mild torture tactics deployed against me (and
many other peaceful individuals I had the pleasure of meeting) in the local
federal prison.

I’m currently seeking a criminal defense attorney who can assist in defending
me against the federal onslaught. I am infinitely grateful for any assistance you
can render. Thank you.

As you can imagine, the next few months (or years, however the hell long it is
for him) are going to be rough for George and his family. It’s hard enough being
in a he said-she said case against a regular person; imagine being in a
he said-she said against the government with only two libertarians
backing you up! He is going to be under a crazy amount of stress until these
charges are (hopefully!) dismissed.

This is where your help is needed.

George needs a good criminal defense attorney who is well versed in first
amendment cases and doesn’t mind taking on the federal government. He will
also need a legal defense fund; he’s got a wife and a young son at home, let’s
try to help ease the financial pressure on them. As of right now (Friday, May
14th, 2:46 am EST), George is taking donations through his paypal account (link
located here). I will update if I find out anything else regarding a legal defense fund for him.

I know that the internet regularly sucks my will to live, but incidences like these
are one of the few times I feel like I can have faith in the ‘tubes. This whole
situation kills me. Admittedly, it’s in part because even though we haven’t met
(yet), George and I run in some of the same circles and have several shared
acquaintances/irl friends. Please help him in whatever way you can; even if you
can’t donate money right now, just spread the info around and maybe you know
someone who can.

She also has a good round-up of links to the reporting on the police riot at the courthouse. I don’t have much to add, except my best wishes and solidarity for George and his family, and my hope that y’all will spread the word about this police assault and what we can do to help George get through this.

Matt Cockerill at the Young Americans for Liberty blog wants to know why there aren’t more libertarian women. By which he apparently means that he wants to know why more women don’t read his own personal libertarian blog and why more women don’t go to the libertarian political events that he personally goes to. (Which is actually a separate question, although men posting Where’s the women? posts never quite seem to recognize that.)

The first point in Matt’s discussion is to ask whether this might be the result of intractable forces predisposing women to be anti-libertarian. (Along with a link to an LRC article arguing, based purely on anecdote and appeal to conventional wisdom, that women are instinctually anti-libertarian because they are too emotional and mostly incapable of abstract thought.)

The second point in Matt’s discussion is to wish for more women to show up for his Sausage Party because libertarian men are currently being driven insane by the lack of young libertarian women to hit on.

But I do know that a proportional increase in libertarian women would do well to preserve the sanity of libertarian men. As it stands, the young female “itinerary” [sic! —R.G.] is mostly composed of Obama zombies, fully-blown Marxists, and “murder-all-Iranians” type chickenhawks. This undoubtedly needs to change.

The first commenter, Anonymous, adds: Most women/girls are more emotional than logical. The ones who think with their brain and not their heart are libertarians. But at the same time most libertarian women have a hard time being libertarian with ALL issues.

The third commenter, John M., adds: I think many of the libertarian women that read this site would take offense to being labeled as more emotional than logical. A more scientific distinction would be to argue that the ratio exists because men are naturally more skilled at mathematics and science whereas women are more skilled in the disciplines of reading and writing. This gives men an advantage at comprehending and anaylzing the ramifications of policies. But he does want more women in the movement, because he believes (based on the experience of Sarah Palin, who he insults as having little … brain-power or charisma) that having a few women on the ticket (a few women who he believes will need to be politically educated by libertarian men) they will be useful for getting out the vote.

Commenter Jack, in reply to John M.’s mention of a female professor who once chewed [him] up for saying that women are more emotional than logical, adds: LOL. More indoctrination. I hate to hear stories of culturally marxist academia. It would be one thing to politely disagree, but professors these days will eat you up if you try to say that any two people are different than each other in any way. Matt Cockerill comes back around to use this as an opportunity to tell us what he thinks is wrong with the modern women’s movement: The result of the egalitarian, denialist feminist indoctrination of the last few decades has been a generation of guys afraid to act like guys, and women who hate most of us for being fakers.

Matt Cockerill also comes back around to mention that he opposes a woman’s right to abortion, and that he considers this position compatible with the politics of individual liberty.

Sometimes, when women don’t show up for your parties, the best thing to do is not to ask whether there’s something wrong with women that makes them naturally predisposed not to dig the things you think they should dig. Because, dude, sometimes the reason that women don’t want to hang out with you is because there’s something wrong with you. And, specifically, because there’s something wrong with the way that you treat women.

And if you want a good example, why not start with the way you approached your original question?

Incidentally, be sure to read through the comments thread on the original post — not because the bulk of the comments are enlightening or even maginally original, but rather because radical feminist, left-libertarian Drunkenatheist’s commentary on the bulk of the comments is. Props.

Coalitions of the Willing

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